After years of darkness it seems the northern suburbs of Beirut will finally be lit up at night. Like most highways in Lebanon, the street lamps in the Dora area are constantly turned out due to electricity cuts. Finally, someone seems to have decided to rely on the sun instead of the failing national power company. And it’s hard to imagine why this wasn’t done years ago.
But the solar panels are set up only on a small patch of highway.
They seem quite close together:
Maybe because they don’t give out a lot of light?
The work began a few weeks ago.
The company is called Irsal Telecom Solutions Provider, as seen on the truck:
I wonder if anyone knows more about this company or the cost/duration of this contract and whether it will be expanded to other areas. Sadly, there exists no publicly accessible database or website listing government projects–at least to my knowledge–so that the public can keep track of such projects and know how their money is being spent. Because as it stands, most citizens will know only about what they see with their eyes after it has been paid for and executed.
Poles are now going up in the Nahr El Mawt area. Could this be the next site of solar panel lighting?
Let’s hope these lights will be effective and properly maintained. Can you imagine if the whole national highway was lit up at night? One can dream.
UPDATE:
Shortly after posting this, I noticed that only a handful of the new lamps were working tonight:
Maybe they are still installing them?
1 comment
The night shots explain why they’re packed that tightly. It’s not the output, it’s the cone or profile of the light it discharges.
The only way to have fewer of them is to make them taller, and I would guess that this would limit the number of service contractors there are that have apparatus tall enough to service the lamps.
The reason these are beginning to appear in places all over the world is that they are reaching an price point vis a vis conventional lights and the hugely expensive task of wiring them in trenches and concrete encased ductbanks.